Rankin Inlet (July 26/06) - Topless and wearing knee-length (and sweltering) sealskin shorts, Jonah Nakoolak looks weary.

He has spent the morning at the Rankin Inlet community arena doing high-kick after high-kick when photographer Silvia Pecota bellows: "Do 30 sit-ups. I want to see those muscles come out."

Photographer Silvia Pecota shows Rankin Inlet's Jonah Nakoolak his photo during a shoot last week. - Andrew Raven/NNSL photo

This is the price of being an Inuk centrefold.

The 21-year-old Nakoolak is one of a half-dozen Nunavut athletes who will, quite literally, be poster children for the 2007 Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse.

Their faces will be emblazoned - following a bit of creative computer tinkering - on massive promotional banners that could hang from the rafters in Whitehorse.

"I think it will be awesome," Nakoolak said last week, sweat dripping from his brow.

Break time over, it's back to business for Nakoolak. He dutifully takes directions from Pecota, a world-class photographer who has shot everyone from Mike Tyson and Wayne Gretzky to Repulse Bay elders.

Once the photo shoot is finished, Pecota will meld her digital pictures with oil paintings. The final result should be unique banners that measure about 10 square metres.

"I'm trying to incorporate traditional images," she says.

The Rankin pictures will be combined with others from Yellowknife, where Pecota was heading last week to shoot traditional Dene games. She hopes to have about 20 images once the process, which could take six months, is complete.

"This has been great," she tells reporters, before asking a tired-looking Nakoolak for another high kick.

"Models are supposed to suffer," she says, before getting back behind the camera.

The 2007 edition of the Canada Winter Games gets underway in February. The competition will feature 21 sports, from judo to table tennis.